A typical aircraft wheel bearing includes an inner portion that may be referred to as a cone, an outer portion that may be referred to as a cup, and a bearing cage that helps secure a plurality of rollers between the cage and the cup. The cage has the approximate shape of a truncated cone with first and second circular, spaced, parallel, edges connected by a plurality of spaced ribs. The circumference of one of the edges may be smaller than the circumference of the other one of the edges so that the ribs connecting the first and second edges are angled with respect to the planes of the first and second edges. The larger edge of the bearing cage may be referred to as the outer edge of the bearing cage because it is often exposed at the side of the bearing.
It has been found these bearing cage outer edges are damaged relatively frequently when the wheel bearing is handled, for example during installation and/or maintenance. Dropping the wheel bearing from a height of even a few inches onto the exposed bearing cage can dent the bearing cage or flatten a portion of the bearing cage relative to its otherwise generally circular outer edge. Very minor damage to the bearing cage can render the wheel bearing unusable because the dented or damaged cage can rub against the rollers or otherwise interfere with wheel rotation. In addition, stresses may be concentrated at the damaged location that could cause the bearing to fail prematurely. Therefore, once damaged, entire wheel bearings are often rendered unusable. This results in discarding of an expensive wheel bearing or returning it to a manufacturer so that the bearing cage could be replaced. It has generally been thought that any damage to the bearing cage rendered the bearing cage unusable due to the misalignment that would occur between the roller and the bearing cage and due to unacceptable concentrations of stress at the location of the damage. It would be desirable, however, to provide an apparatus and a method for effectively repairing damaged bearing cages, having various dimensions, instead of discarding such damaged bearing cages.